ANet is a nonprofit dedicated to the premise that every child in America deserves an excellent education and the opportunities it provides. We pursue our vision of educational equality in America by helping schools boost student learning with great teaching that is grounded in standards, informed by data, and built on the successful practices of educators around the country.

The Achievement Network congratulates partner school Nashville Prep for their recent recognition as the highest performing charter school in Tennessee in 2011-12. The ranking is based on a study published by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education (CREDO) that compared performance data from students in charter schools with peers in district schools. The top performance ranking was achieved after Nashville Prep's first year of operation, making the accomplishment particularly impressive.

The test question showed a carton labeled “15 pencils.” “Sharif sharpened 5 pencils,” the question continued. “Which fractions represent the pencils that Sharif sharpened?”
Fourteen of the 4th graders at Washington, D.C.’s Hope Community Charter School had chosen the right answer—1/3 and 5/15—on a test written for the school by Boston-based Achievement Network (ANet). But 20 chose the wrong answer, and two didn’t answer at all.
So on a bright November afternoon three weeks after the test, Hope’s math specialist, Christine Madison, and two of the school’s 4th-grade teachers huddled over five pages of test-score data assembled for them by ANet. Hope’s Tolson campus serves 420 youngsters in grades PreK–8, almost all of them African American and two-thirds of them from low-income families. It is one of three D.C. charters that are operated by Virginia-based Imagine Schools and are working with ANet. The city’s charter board calls Hope “mid-performing”—about 40 percent of its elementary-school children and 60 percent of its middle schoolers are considered proficient in math and English.

The Achievement Network (ANet) is excited to announce Boston Prep as winner of the 2012 Education Impact Award for the Eastern Massachusetts Network. ANet is a national non-profit organization that supports schools to build a culture of data-driven instruction designed to increase student achievement. The Impact Award recognizes Principal Michaela Crowley and her team’s outstanding contributions to the Eastern Massachusetts Network.

John Maycock, Founder and Chief Growth Officer of The Achievement Network presents the Education Impact Award to the Boston Prep leadership team in the photo above. (From left to right: John Maycock; Timothy Suba, Math Department Chair; Michaela Crowley, Middle School Principal; Scott McCue, Head of School.)

Boston Prep opened its doors to other leaders and teachers in the Network by hosting the first ever Learning Walk – an event that invites leaders and teachers to visit each others’ schools to observe data-driven best practices in action. The Boston Prep team goes above and beyond to share their approach and cherishes feedback from others in the Network. They’ve been critical thought partners in how ANet schools can most effectively transition to the Common Core. Boston Prep leaders have shared their data-driven best practices at Network Meetings and their teachers contributed over 350 Math and ELA lessons to The Achievement Network and BetterLesson websites. They are effective leaders, humble practitioners and great neighbors in our collective charge to ensure all students achieve in our Network. Join us in celebrating Boston Prep’s contributions and achievements!

100Kin10 Making Quick Progress Toward Goal of Training and Retaining 100,000 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Teachers in 10 Years
New York, NY, January 18, 2012— An innovative movement to recruit, prepare, and retain 100,000 science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers in 10 years has achieved critical mass with the addition of new, quantifiable commitments by more than 30 educational and corporate partners.
The Achievement Network (ANet) will support new STEM teachers to dramatically improve their effectiveness in the classroom by equipping them to set ambitious goals, plan backward from standards, track progress, and make data-driven decisions. Currently, ANet supports 2,500 STEM teachers in 250 schools across nine urban areas. “We are thrilled to expand our work with STEM teachers and join a network of over 115 other partners focused on excellent STEM teaching,” said CEO Mora Segal.

The Achievement Network has been cited by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation as one of the Foundation's "investments to enhance educators’ abilities to better understand and use student data." The Foundation specifically mentions ANet's "efforts to build data analysis skills of school leadership teams." Click here to see the full publication.

The Achievement Network has been named NewSchools Venture Fund's 2011 Organization of the Year. According to NewSchools Venture Fund, "the [award is] designed to recognize and celebrate the achievements of this important class of social innovators, who are making a difference in the lives of students in underserved communities across the country and changing the national conversation about what’s possible in public education." For the full press release, click here.

Fight For Children, a nonprofit organization in the District of Columbia, has announced the winners of its 2011 Quality Schools Initiative Award. Two of the four Quality Schools Initiative Award winners- DC Preparatory Academy and Cleveland Elementary School- are ANet partner schools.

New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS) has announced the 2011 Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC) National Charter School Consortium Award winners, six of which are part of The Achievement Network (ANet).

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan met for the first time with a coalition of District of Columbia education leaders and held a panel discussion including parents, teachers, and students at a D.C. middle school that is producing dramatic gains in student achievement. The event also was the first time Secretary Duncan met with the city’s new mayor, its education leaders, and the new leader of the city’s teachers’ union. Click to read more

The Achievement Network has released our 2010 Annual Report, which describes the successes of our partner schools and illustrates our unique role in helping schools to measurably increase student achievement.

The Achievement Network is thrilled to announce that it is a recipient of the prestigious Investing in Innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Read more about the award in this article in Education Week.

"...10 diverse New Orleans charter schools have banded together to share data and test score results during the school year, with the goal of better gauging their strengths and weaknesses."

One of the schools that uses The Achievement Network commented:

"This allows you to drill down and look teacher by teacher and child by child," said Patty Glaser, the director of curriculum and development at Lusher Charter School. "It gives you time to make a difference for the kids" more immediately.